Copyright Reform Poll

[MarjaE]

Rather than just your preferred policies, what are your priorities for these? For example:

* philosophical views of property such as minimalism, a rivalrous/non-rivalrous or natural/artificial distinction, or maximalism.

* preservation of historical works.

* continued access to published versions.

* improved accessibility and compatibility with accessibility tools and more accessible devices.

* supporting authors and other artists.

* ensuring that when we do pay for works, it's going to the authors and not profiteers.

* encouraging derivative works, in hopes of clearer cultural dialogue between different subcultures, different generations, and so on, or just better versions and adaptations.

* discouraging derivative works, either for the author's dignity or in hopes of different perspectives.

* encouraging credit where credit is due.

[gmw]

I think you're missing one:

* making money.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

[...] Automatic assignment is one of the worst things to ever happen in copyright, and is the root cause for many of the above-mentioned issues.

So you'd much rather it cost creators to use the system? (Anything other than automatic requires registration which requires management which requires someone to pay for it. So either user-pays (creators) or the tax payer pays ... again.) I can see the argument, but I can't agree with it.

Your "above-mentioned" issues need to be properly analysed to see what they are really about and whether other solutions (aside from throwing the baby out with the bathwater) might present themselves.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

To be fair, once you get past a certain number of years, it become difficult to show how extensions of copyright damage the public at large. What's the difference between the Berne Convention copyright (life plus 50 or 75 years for corporations) and the Mickey Mouse Protection Act (life plus 70, or 95 years for corporations)? From a movie point of view, if they hadn't extended copyright, any movie prior to 1945 would be in public domain, yet I can still go out and buy DVD of the most of the major movies for 1939 (Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach...). From that stand point, the public hasn't been seemingly harmed.

Harm to the public is not just from works becoming unavailable. The public is harmed by the monopoly causing higher prices. The public is harmed by derivative works being more expensive or forbidden, and by the chilling effect of the possibility of being sued for unintentional infringement.

Copyright is a monopoly. It's there for a good reason (to encourage people to create works) but it should be the minimum length that achieves that goal. IMO it is currently enormously longer than necessary. And retaining a monopoly longer than necessary harms the public almost by definition.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

(Since copyright is now assigned automatically—and who knows when this "Tex2002ans" person is going to die so I can count 70 years after that.)

Anonymous or pseudonymous works are another excellent reason to drop the entanglement of copyright length with the lifetime of the author.

If copyright only lasted 50 years after publication, we wouldn't need to know when Tex2020ans died. We'd only need to have a date of publication.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Harm to the public is not just from works becoming unavailable. The public is harmed by the monopoly causing higher prices. The public is harmed by derivative works being more expensive or forbidden, and by the chilling effect of the possibility of being sued for unintentional infringement.

Copyright is a monopoly. It's there for a good reason (to encourage people to create works) but it should be the minimum length that achieves that goal. IMO it is currently enormously longer than necessary. And retaining a monopoly longer than necessary harms the public almost by definition.

I don't disagree with that, though I will say that the US fair use exceptions takes care of some of those concerns. My major point is that it's tough to explain to someone why life plus 50 is good, but life plus 70 is bad.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I don't disagree with that, though I will say that the US fair use exceptions takes care of some of those concerns. My major point is that it's tough to explain to someone why life plus 50 is good, but life plus 70 is bad.

life+50 isn't good. But it is better than life+70. publication+50 would be a lot better.

(I'm aware that anything less than life+50 is almost an impossibility, but we're discussing ideals in this thread, rather than what could actually be achieved in the near term.)

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

Rather than just your preferred policies, what are your priorities for these?

I'll try to rank these highest -> lowest, then give some reasoning.

Originally Posted by MarjaE

* philosophical views of property such as minimalism, a rivalrous/non-rivalrous or natural/artificial distinction, or maximalism.

"Intellectual Property" is both non-scarce and non-rivalrous.

Non-scarce, in that ideas, patterns of information, and recipes can be duplicated infinitely.

And non-rivalrous, because it's impossible to stop anyone else from using those ideas at the same time.

There's nothing natural about Intellectual "Property", they're artificial monopolies granted by the state, trying to introduce "scarcity" to a non-scarce good (which is impossible).

To top it off, they always conflict with actual Property Rights.

Conflicting IP+Property Rights

Let's say I make a chocolate cake.

In the physical realm, Property Rights arise because it's impossible for you to use those same exact objects at the same time. If I use my eggs, flour, and butter, nobody else can use those same exact ingredients at the same time.

Physical things are "rivalrous".

In the mental realm, I can think about a recipe for a cake + you can think about the same recipe too. There is no overlap:

Me thinking about cakes doesn't somehow stop everyone else in the world from being able to think about cakes. If I teach you this recipe, it doesn't disappear from my head. There can be billions of people all thinking about the same thing at the same time.

But what Intellectual Property tries to do is:

I thought of this (chocolate cake) recipe first. I can now go to a group of people and demand that nobody else can mix their physical goods (eggs, flour, and mixing bowls) in a specific pattern... for 100+ years... or else.

* * *

Another key point is two economic concepts:

• Marginal Cost
  
  • How much it costs to create one more unit of a good.
• Marginal Revenue
  
  • How much people are willing to spend for one more unit of a good.

Over time, there's always a tendency for "marginal revenue to equal marginal costs".

Throughout history, marginal costs tend to go down. (As technology progresses, methods become more refined, much larger scale production, better/faster tools.)

Take production of books for example:

• Scribes
  
  • Lots of manual labor.
    
  • Very Expensive = High Marginal Cost
• Printing Press
  
  • Much cheaper = Medium Marginal Cost
• Internet
  
  • Effectively free = Negligible/No Marginal Cost

Another important thing happened:

"Intellectual goods" were always bundled with scarce/physical goods (books printed on paper, music on vinyl records), and costs were non-negligible.

But because of this fantastic invention called the internet, now many "intellectual goods" can be replicated instantaneously and near 0 marginal cost.

It's become easier/cheaper than ever to create/learn/teach/reach more people, and this is absolutely amazing.

Highest Importance

Originally Posted by MarjaE

* improved accessibility and compatibility with accessibility tools and more accessible devices.

This is one of the reasons why I digitize books + strongly prefer ebooks.

Even within the current law, there are exceptions carved out for creating ebooks for the deaf/blind...

But the production of these formats is severely restricted and hampered compared to what would otherwise exist. On top of that, these digitized files are then strictly kept away from the general public.

Note: For some info on these, see these articles:

Spoiler:

• Archive.org
  
  • "Unlocking Books for the Blind and Visually Impaired"
• Techdirt
  
  • "MPAA Tells US Government To Screw Over The Blind, Reject Fair Use"
    
  • "MPAA: Oh, Of Course We Want To Help The Blind Read More... Just As Long As You Don't Touch Copyright"
    
  • "MPAA's Actions, Emails Show That They're Doing Everything Possible To Screw Over The Blind"
    
  • "European Parliament Committee Willing To Push Back On Copyright When It Comes To The Blind"
    

Originally Posted by MarjaE

* continued access to published versions.

See the famous chart in:

Techdirt, "How Copyright Makes Culture Disappear"

showing how many "new books" are published by decade. The entire collection of books from the 1930s+ are a huge regression (called "The 20th Century Blackhole").

Side Note: Similar situations have happened with all other intellectual works:

On Music, see jazz article linked in Post #191. On Journal articles + Video Games, see my linked discussion in the "EU Piracy Report" thread. On copyrights/patents impeding innovation, I recommend Chapters 1-3 in "Against Intellectual Monopoly".

Originally Posted by MarjaE

* preservation of historical works.

Destruction/Disintegration

Most early movies are lost forever.

See the fantastic Wikipedia article, "Lost film":

Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation claims that "half of all American films made before 1950 and over 90% of films made before 1929 are lost forever."

For example, "Saved from the Titanic" (1912), which was shot/released weeks after the sinking of the Titanic (and starred an actress who survived + wore the same clothes she wore on the lifeboat).

Or the very first Wizard of Oz movie, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (1910). Not that colorful musical one everyone knows about. (Sadly, the credits are gone, so nobody knows who the actors were... and the 2 sequel movies are completely lost.)

Similar to Orphan Works, copyright freezes and keeps many legitimate businesses from investing in recovery + reviving. And by the time the rights are sorted out (if they ever are), the source material could be gone.

Format Shifting + Streaming + Digital (HD)

Many movies/shows are stuck in limbo, and don't exist anywhere in digital form for purchase (Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.) or not in modern HD formats (BluRay).

As one example of movies that aren't available in digital formats, see:

Cinemassacre, "Best Video Store I've Ever Seen!! - "Movie Madness" in Portland, Oregon"

They tour one of the last surviving VHS/DVD rental stores, which focuses on an enormous collection of all these strange/obscure movies.

Many fall into this trap because they're mired in nests of overlapping rights.

A similar situation can be seen with famous TV Shows, like "Babylon 5" (1991) (one of the best sci-fi shows ever made).

It has a large fanbase + the creator is all for trying to remaster in HD, get it available for streaming, but Warner Bros. refuses to let the project move forward:

https://www.cancelledscifi.com/2018/...it-on-blu-ray/

and many of the original CGI files are gone:

https://b5books.com/2017/05/02/babyl...-never-happen/

and even if you had the files, the old computers/OSes those files were created on... are becoming harder and harder to find/repair/maintain (and export into a modern/usable format).

(There are many, many, many more examples of this.)

* * *

Side Note: And on obsolete and strange gadgets/formats, I love the Youtube channel, "Techmoan". He covers so many weird retro devices.

Like just a few days ago, he posted about 1960s/1970s Polish postcards that could be played on a turntable like vinyl records:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shisgymvKZ8

Even when they were new, they were so cheaply made, they were pretty much destroyed after a few plays (not to mention decades of physical deterioration).

Or one of my other favorite videos:

"e-books in the 1990s - Sony's Data Discman"

* * *

Low "Importance"

Originally Posted by MarjaE

* encouraging derivative works, in hopes of clearer cultural dialogue between different subcultures, different generations, and so on, or just better versions and adaptations.

But copyright is most often used in the exact opposite direction...

Censorship

Here's just a few examples:

Techdirt, "Why Yes, Copyright Can Be Used To Censor, And 'Fair Use Creep' Is Also Called 'Free Speech'"

or the famous 1922 derivative works battle between Nosferatu vs. Dracula:

"How Copyright Infringement Turned Vampires Into Big Business"

(The government ordered all copies of Nosferatu to be destroyed... luckily, copies survived.)

Copyright also freezes and preemptively stops many projects before they even get off the ground. I've explained this with trying to republish books in the murky 1923-1963 time period, but also see discussion in the 2019 topic:

"(US specific) 80% of books published 1924-63 allegedly in public domain"

Translations/Subtitles

These are fantastic and help expand the market for these goods in all directions.

For example, I watch a lot of anime in Japanese audio + English subtitles. Without subtitles, I would have never even watched these shows or knew they existed.

Becoming a fan then enables me to purchase tangential goods (figurines, manga) + do a lot of "free marketing" (telling my friends about it, discussing it on forums, getting other people to watch/purchase).

I can also watch these animes within the same week they air in the original country because:

Fansubbing

"Fansubbing" is where fans translate and create their own unofficial subtitles.

Because of the internet, there are now people doing this for nearly every language, every movie, every tv show... very quickly and for free.

But copyright clashes with reality:

• Techdirt, "Dutch Court Rules That Freely Given Fan-Subtitles Are Copyright Infringement"
• "The War On Fan-Subtitles Comes To Australia in The Form Of Site-Blocking"
• "With Court Ruling, Fan Subtitles Officially Copyright Infringement In Sweden"

[...] [fan translations] are primarily useful because those legitimate options, including the relevant language translations, are not available [officially]. Sites like this are used by many who buy movies and television and then apply the fan-subs afterwards. Customers who would, in other words, not be able to be customers if not for the fan-subs.

Again, luckily the internet enables distribution of these translations despite copyright.

Complete Side Note: And if you love mob movies and want one of the best shows of the decade, I highly recommend the 2014 Italian show "Gomorrrah".

Wouldn't have been possible for me to become a fan... I don't speak or understand Italian.

Least/No Importance

Originally Posted by MarjaE

* discouraging derivative works, either for the author's dignity or in hopes of different perspectives.

Unsure what you mean here, but think I have an idea. Could you clarify?

Originally Posted by MarjaE

* encouraging credit where credit is due.

This is a thing any "reasonable person" would do, but citations+plagiarism have nothing to do with copyright.

Originally Posted by MarjaE

* supporting authors and other artists.

* ensuring that when we do pay for works, it's going to the authors and not profiteers.

No. That's not the purpose of copyright.

Originally Posted by gmw

* making money.

Abolishing copyright doesn't stop you from selling or making money.

I know it's hard to believe, but people created intellectual things (and sold them!) before copyright. There are many fields and times in history where IP didn't exist, and there are even fields where IP has been mostly kept out... like Fashion:

TedX, "Johanna Blakley: Lessons from Fashion's Free Culture"

And back to the original discussion on Technology + Marginal Cost, it's cheaper than ever to create, and easier than ever to connect directly with fans/customers around the world and get paid.

Originally Posted by gmw

So you'd much rather it cost creators to use the system?

It would be a step in the right direction, but "copyright registration" would be $0 if the entire system was abolished.

But while weighing this... you have to take into account the total benefits and costs.

A small "benefit" is copyright is "free and automatic", but the copyright system places hundreds of billions of dollars of actual loss every year + untold amounts of hidden costs.

I highly recommend reading "Against Intellectual Monopoly" (the PDF I linked above is free on the author's site, but if you want a physical book... feel free to pay ). Boldrin & Levine break down many of the historical examples, and compare/contrast different countries/markets across time.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

life+50 isn't good. But it is better than life+70. publication+50 would be a lot better.

And abolition would be even better!

Originally Posted by pdurrant

(I'm aware that anything less than life+50 is almost an impossibility, but we're discussing ideals in this thread, rather than what could actually be achieved in the near term.)

If it was passed, it can just as easily be abolished.

But laws that the government passes can't stop economic reality.

The internet exists, piracy exists, fansubs exist, 3D printing exists, things are getting cheaper than ever to produce.

Ideas want to be free.

Anything that gets placed in the way is and will be steamrolled and navigated around by technology.

Side Note: Anyway, I'll have to read the rest of the posts and thoroughly cite things another day. I'm pooped! There's probably a reason why I seem to do these (glorious) copyright posts only once every 3 years.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

I'll try to rank these highest -> lowest, then give some reasoning.

IP rationales vary by country and profession,just as the rules do.
One size won't fit all.

Getting agreement on Berne alone took decades.
Another regime?
Yeah, right.

Good topic for speculative discussion but it ain't gonna happen.

[MarjaE]

Thank you, Tex.

I agree with a lot of that. A lot of these priorities are reasons to oppose the system, or at least rein it in.

Some other posters preferred life+x on the grounds that authors shouldn't have to see what other people do with their works. I don't agree but I do want a list of priorities and if that's one of someone's priorities, may as well list it. Thus discouraging derivative works.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

Some other posters preferred life+x on the grounds that authors shouldn't have to see what other people do with their works. I don't agree but I do want a list of priorities and if that's one of someone's priorities, may as well list it. Thus discouraging derivative works.

Life+x isn't a good response to that concern. Maximum (x, life) is the way to solve that one, but I now think even that is bad. I just don't give any weight to the author's control of their creation, apart from during the copyright period.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Life+x isn't a good response to that concern. Maximum (x, life) is the way to solve that one, but I now think even that is bad. I just don't give any weight to the author's control of their creation, apart from during the copyright period.

I agree. I think it’s roughly analogous to the author who sells screen rights. The author endorses the check and the studio does what it will with the story. Similarly, in exchange for copyright and the protections thereto, the author gives up eventual control. That’s the point in essence. As things stand now, society’s given up far too much of its stake in the works.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I think this is exactly right. And unfortunately, the politicians who ought to be working for the public good tend to be influenced by the people with money instead. And have been for at least a couple of hundred years.

Although I suppose some of them may just be honestly mistaken.

Nah! Money talks and everything else gets screwed.

[JSWolf]

Babylon 5 was made with Amiga computers using a video Toaster. So you would need a working Amiga with a Video Toaster in order to use the original video files.

[Quoth]

The Amiga and Video Toaster are possible (if that's true). But the original CGI was all destroyed. Too expensive to store. The film remains, so the BD edition is patchy in quality and not worth getting if you have the B5 Universe DVD box set.